1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus configured to print data on a moving sheet.
2. Description of the Related Art
US Patent Application Publication 2007/0132799 discusses a technique relating to printing the data even on the edges of a sheet without generating blank spaces by an inkjet printing apparatus using a continuous sheet, i.e., so-called borderless printing. Since apart of ink is ejected even beyond the edges of a sheet during the borderless printing, movable ink receivers (90A and 90B) are provided outside a sheet to receive the ejected ink. The movable ink receivers and transport guides (92A and 92B) for supporting the edges of the sheet are configured to be displaced according to the width of the sheet to be used.
In the apparatus discussed in US Patent Application Publication 2007/0132799, the movable ink receivers and the transport guides are moved integrally with each other. However, it is not easy to quickly move the movable ink receivers due to their great masses and large volumes compared to the transport guides. Therefore, each time the width of a sheet is changed, a waiting time must be taken, which is required to move the movable ink receivers, thereby hindering the improvement of the total print throughput. Especially, when this printing technique is employed in a printing apparatus using a plurality of line heads, the size of a drive mechanism for moving the movable ink receivers increases.